If someone asks me, “What’s in it for me?” in a conversation, I tend to have a negative reaction. It sounds self-centered. It sounds quid pro quo.
For as long as I’ve been around Humanergy, we’ve turned that question into a one-word tool: WIIFM. It’s pronounced WHIFF-Em. And interestingly, we almost always bring up WIIFMs when talking about other people. It’s an empathy tool. In other words, we’re talking with a partner about leading or influencing in a situation and we ask them to consider, sometimes even write down, the WIIFMs of the other people involved. These days many of us think of empathy as a critical component of emotional intelligence. And many of us aspire to develop more emotional intelligence because it is a secret ingredient for effectiveness and success in work and in life.
Can you keep WIIFMs at the forefront of your thinking today? Can you consistently ask yourself, “What are that person’s WIIFMs?”
I saw a meme recently that said people think empathy is only feeling sorry for someone else. It went on to break empathy into various components. We define empathy as putting yourself in the shoes of someone else. That definition helped me over the years not make empathy something soft and unappealing. It helped me see it as a critical skill for collaborating, problem solving, and building consensus. On a deeper level, how can we even connect human-to-human if we aren’t trying to understand what life looks like in the other person’s shoes?
So what kinds of things should we consider when we ask, “What are their WIIFMs?” Here’s a list:
• What are their goals? (related to this issue, for this year, in general in their life and career could be dimensions we consider)
• What is motivating them in this moment?
• Have I really listened to them? Have I listened without formulating a response before they finish?
• What’s important to them?
• What are they feeling in this moment?
• Are they comfortable/confident? Are they threatened? Are they concerned or afraid? Are they insecure?
• Are there things they can see, that I can’t or haven’t considered?
Remembering to ask about others’ WIIFMs can be a shortcut to practicing empathy. After we ask questions like the ones above, can we consider what to say or do next? How can I help us achieve the greatest good for the greatest number of people in the organization?
Best of luck keeping WIIFMs at the forefront of your thinking.
